Tea party favorite may not get chair

Kingston is the fifth-ranking member on the committee. There’s precedent for reaching down the ladder to select a chairman with conservative credentials. In 1994, Speaker-elect Newt Gingrich chose fifth-ranking member Bob Livingston to chair the panel. Livingston grabbed headlines for bringing a machete to the House floor in his first speech as chairman to show how seriously he took budget cutting.

But Livingston was close to Gingrich, while Kingston doesn’t have a strong relationship with Boehner or incoming Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). He didn’t have Boehner’s backing in a 2006 competition for Republican Conference chairman, which he lost narrowly.

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Flake, who worked with Kingston to encourage other conservatives to join the Appropriations panel, said Kingston’s support for earmark reform marks him out to voters as someone with the right idea about cutting spending.

“Kingston came out pretty early on for some earmark reform,” Flake said. “He’s seen more as a reform kind of figure. It’s an easier sell to the outside if it’s somebody who has been pushing for reform for a little longer. But whoever it is, they’re going to need to make some moves to assure the taxpayers we’re serious now.”

He said the committee’s success with Lewis or Rogers as chairman depends on whether it brings fiscal conservatives into the fold.

“It depends on what role we have on the committee,” he said. “If it’s just putting a few conservatives on the committee, and leaving the current structure pretty much in place, that’s not enough.”

Other conservatives say Lewis or Rogers have laid out credible plans for cutting spending and could be effective if they stick to what they’ve promised.

Colorado Rep. Doug Lamborn, another conservative interested in joining the panel, said either Lewis or Rogers could be an effective chairman of the committee “if they do what they say they’re going to do.”

Do radical rightwing extremists of the TEA party really thing that the Corporate owners of the Republican Party are going to hand them any kind of serious power?? Their man, Boehner, hands out the checks on The House floor. Everyone knows who he reports to and it ain't no TEA partiers. They've been used. Thanks a lot suckers!

thebob.bob Don't confuse all conservatives with some of the Tea Partiers. Some of those folks are more Libertarian than Republican just as not all Democrats are far left radicals. There are some reasonable moderate Democrats - according to some sources anyway.